Season 5 Spoiler Thread

[JDBentz]

And it's not just the Gambit's departure. I don't think there was any point in the flashbacks where we heard or saw what the date was. And maybe it was by design because they wanted the flashbacks' timeline to be loosely connected to the current one.

Not exact dates, no, but we do have a handful of things we can figure the timeline on now. Obviously there's what's just been revealed: 5x21-23 are all taking place in the two days before the fishing boat arrives, and there's a five day wait after that before the news report airs. So if we assume 1x01's airdate is the day we see Moira and him at the hospital on, that means October 3, 2012 is the day he arrives on the island.

We also know his visit to Starling City coincided with Tommy's birthday, so 3x14's flashbacks were late January to early February of 2010, assuming the 'birthday bash' Tommy threw was a 'public affair' and he had a quieter birthday with people he cared about (Thea, Laurel, maybe even his dad if Malcolm wasn't being a jerk, rarity though that apparently was).

I've generally placed the Gambit going down as September of 2007 and each of the 'heavy flashback' episodes from the first two seasons encompassing more than a week or so of training for Oliver, maybe as much as a month. 3x14, you could maybe stretch intel gathering and such off-screen to about a week, same with the Season 5 Bratva-heavy flashback in 5x17.

And we're not even factoring in the possibility of how much time passed between the flashbacks of each episode.

Eh, well, good news for those of us who like to write fan fiction or come up with theories as to why Oliver's so good when he's apparently only trained for a 'few days' in certain episodes.

[Amarice]

Russians are more or less synonymous with gangster organizations like the Bratva. However, I'm not sure that other non-Americans fare any better, though. That's why season one stands out for me....so many of the bad guys were corrupt one-percenter white Americans, rather than the foreign gangsters that we see in later seasons.

Yeah, but then again flashback are in Russia so the focus is on bad guys from Russia. In current timeline in season 5 there was a bunch of more or less random gangsters that were certainly from US. Procedural approach in season 1/early season 2 had more pros than cons IMO - I remember more of those one-off bad guys than what was happening in this season (I still wait for explanation what Helix has written in their objective - "hack everything even if it can't be hacked according to common sense" would do ). Tobias Church was okay as villain for a mini-arc, and at least he had some Evil Plan With A Clear Objective.

Eh, well, good news for those of us who like to write fan fiction or come up with theories as to why Oliver's so good when he's apparently only trained for a 'few days' in certain episodes.

Remember when we've talked about organizing a Writing Challenge for Arrow? Writing crack fics about Oliver getting his skills in ridiculously short time might be one of the ideas. Btw. even before I started practicting archery I laughed when I saw those scenes with slapping water. Also no way that Oliver would draw back 70 lbs bow as the beginner, no matter how much water he would slap.

[Freawaru]

I don't think that in the flashbacks the time was as in reality or even as in the now-part of the series. For example in season one, Oliver was shot by Yao Fei at the end of an episode. Next episode he awakens in Yao Fei's cave. I doubt this was one week later. There also must have been a large jump in time between Oliver killing the bird and getting caught by Fyres' men. Between Yao Fei leaving Oliver alone in the cave to heal and coming back with Fyres as prisoner also should not have been two weeks, as there would not have been enough fresh water in the cave. Then things happened very fast: Oliver ran away from Fyres while Yao Fei got caught, Oliver got caught the second time by Fyres, Yao Fei faked Oliver's death and Oliver met Slade. This was weeks in real-time but it should have been days in the flashbacks, except if Oliver was prisoner for weeks. The time Oliver had been on the island before meeting Slade had been around half a year, so there must have been at least the one big jump between him killing the bird and wanting to learn to shoot or even a jump between returning to Yao Fei's cave after running away from him and killing the bird.

I would expect that it had been months he was trained by Talia. Same with Maseo - there must have been months he was trained by him and did jobs for Waller, stories we didn't see on screen.

[BkWurm1]

I would expect that it had been months he was trained by Talia. Same with Maseo - there must have been months he was trained by him and did jobs for Waller, stories we didn't see on screen.

I agree that many months probably passed during his time getting training in Hong Kong but from Anatoly's casual reaction to Oliver not being around while Talia "trained" him, no more than a week, at tops two, went by.

[Haggard01]

I agree that many months probably passed during his time getting training in Hong Kong but from Anatoly's casual reaction to Oliver not being around while Talia "trained" him, no more than a week, at tops two, went by.

Good point with Anatoly's causal reaction.

Another possibility is Oliver while spending time with Talia, made sure to still be an active Bratva member during the possible months while he was trained.

[Haggard01]

Here is an advanced review and non spoiler review from Craig

http://www.greenarrowtv.com/arrow-season-5-finale-lian-yu-advance-review/

Enjoy